When I saw Wang Le take his time, looking at his mobile phone and drinking coffee at a waiting area of the Beijing West Railway Station in early February, my mind couldn't help but slip back to roughly a decade ago.

Wang has been my friend since childhood and we both settled in Beijing after graduation.

That long-ago meeting was in the same setting as this one. We agreed to meet at the same train station and travel back together to our hometown of Wuyishan, East China's Fujian province, for the Spring Festival holiday.

The perimeter of the train station was filled with anxious migrants who were desperately edging toward the station's entrance in a long line that looked easily 100 meters long. There was nothing I could do but inch along with the crowd, cheek by jowl.

It took me roughly 20 minutes to get in. When the time came for check-in, I called Wang, but he didn't pick up.